Happy May Day!
May 1, 2021
I know this post is late…we just got home from our nearly 2 week trip to the west coast and up to the Pacific Northwest and I’m a bit scrambled. Plus, we actually got to work outside today and then I remembered that I hadn’t posted AGAIN (last Saturday we went on 2 different hikes and then out for dinner and by the time we got back to the campsite…I fell into bed exhausted) so I figured better late than never, right?
Since April just ended yesterday, and we’ve been gone, I’m in no way prepared to do a monthly wrap up post, so look for that next week! With lots of pics from our PNW adventures 🙂
With today being May Day, I have a quick question for you all: growing up, did you make May Day baskets for other kids in your neighborhood or neighbors? Craft a basket from whatever you had on hand–likely a little Dixie cup with a pipe cleaner as handle, or a piece of construction paper or a doily fashioned into a cone shape with string, ribbon or a lace handle, and then filled that makeshift basket with candy, or dandelions, or mini-marshmallows or the like–then you hung the “basket” on the door handle, rang the door bell and…ran? Or is that just a midwestern activity? My brother and I did it growing up, and my girls did it, but I don’t know if that’s even a thing anymore.
Anyway, hope you’re all having a great weekend!
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Roxanne Farrington said:
I remember May Day celebrations at school. We had a may pole to dance around and wind the ribbons. We made flowers for our hair. It was a big deal!💐🌸🌷🌺🌹🌼
Ellen Bartel said:
Welcome home! By your recent posts it looked like you had a wonderful vacation!
I’ve never heard of May Day baskets, I wonder if it’s a Midwest thing. Looks cute though.
Suzie Weber said:
Funny you should ask a craft type question. I moved four years ago this June and am still going through boxes. I found the box that had both the boys ceramic elementary art projects. Some need a little glue others, not sure what they were suppose to be. My oldest is 35, who knew a third graders project would still be whole!. In preschool they made May baskets I held on to them for a few years. Never made another since. I don’t even remember making May baskets. Must not be a “Michigan” thing.
Jenny Black said:
May Day wasn’t a thing where I grew up in Utah. So it’s never been a thing with my husband and I and our daughter.
Karen Hrdlicka said:
I did May baskets because for me it was a special day, my birthday, so I wanted to share the celebration
Donna said:
I don’t remember May Day baskets where I lived in NC. The year before I started school, my grandmother had the first grades she taught put on a May Day play. She had me and a younger girl appear in the play as flower girls. I can remember being on stage with all those older kids.
K. A Bylsma said:
We did all of those activities listed!
My late husband always made May Day baskets for his mother and me. I miss that.
Happy May Day or Beltane, if you celebrate.
Caroline said:
Our church always had a May Breakfast on the first Saturday in May. They had a large table covered with May Baskets filled with home made candies. You had to go right by it while waiting in line to get in. After we ate eggs, bacon, ham, home fries, baked beans and pastries, we got to pick out a basket to take home. My mother remembers dancing around the May Pole!
Lisa Rounsley said:
I grew up making May baskets and hand delivering them to the neighbors. You knock on the door and run and hope they don’t catch you because if they do they kiss you. My kids did it when they were little after we moved back to South Dakota.
Rachelle Farberman-Kusari said:
I’m from the Bronx and never even heard of a maypole until my reading tastes expanded, and then I saw one at a Renaissance Faire. What fun.
B. J. Dworkin said:
I remember making dandelion head crowns, doilies with pipe cleaners… but not giving to neighbors, just doing with my Mom, or a friend or two. (Of course the Maypole in elementary school 😄)
Janice said:
Living in Canada, May Day was never really that special.
In my early twenties my mother and I took a bus tour through Europe with people from all over the world, and to a lot of them May 1st was pretty special. Dinner on that May 1st evening, one lady, having gotten to know the group for a few weeks, wrote a really cute poem for each of us. And I still remember that dinner every May 1st, the way we laughed and clapped at how spot on her observations were about each of us as we toasted her and each other. That’s something I’ll always remember about the first of May, the trip I shared with my Mom, the nice people we met, and the lovely thoughtful poems that were written for us, that I still have.
Janice said:
Welcome back!
Living in Canada, May Day was never that special. We might have danced around a May pole in kindergarten, but that was about it.
In my twenties though, my mother and I took a bus tour through Europe with people from all over the world. And many of them thought May Day was pretty special.
On the night of May 1st, one lady had written poems for everyone in the group, even our hunky Italian bus driver that I remember made him blush the way that she’d described him, with his big brown eyes and super buff body. And I remember too, how we laughed and clapped as she read out each one to us over dinner, surpised at how spot on she was about her observations, having known us all for only a few weeks.
So every May day I think back on that trip with my mom, the wonderful people we met and the thoughtful poems that she crafted that I still have. Along with how hunky that bus driver really was, that I might have snuck away with a few times just for a few glasses of wine and pizza, of course.
Elisa said:
I grew up in Quebec. As Janice said, Canada doesn’t really consider May 1 a big deal. I remember a teacher once showing us a picture of a Maypole. I think that’s as close as I got to celebrating May Day. 😉
Deborah said:
We didn’t celebrate May Day when I was younger here in California. I do remember picking our roses and delivering them to our neighbors up and down our street for a few years.
When my Mom was a child, they did celebrate with the May Pole. I didn’t until my late 20’s.
DaLana Rigby said:
Midwest Iowa Girl here. Growing up we did May baskets every year. When I moved to Connecticut to be a Nanny, I taught the kids to do them also. (of course there was more driving involved as where they lived was bigger than where I grew up) The kids loved it!
Lisa said:
Growing up we picked wildflowers (and sometimes the neighbors), and would take paper and make a cone to put them in. We would take or staple ribbon for hanging if we had it. Then we would go to the neighborhood houses and put them on doorknobs or on their porches. We lived in a small subdivision so did them all. One neighbor had tulips or irises growing along her driveway and unfortunately we would use some of them every year. But we also had a wooded area behind us and would pick all kinds of flowers from it Most of my co-workers here in SE TX never heard of doing that. Maybe a Midwest thing? (II lived in Illinois growing up). Happy memories.
Kim B said:
May Day not a celebration in Indiana apparently. I didn’t hear about it till a few years ago on a TV craft show.
Ruth S. said:
I am from Florida/Georgia area, and I don’t remember making
Those, but what a Great idea!
kc said:
Grew up partly in Kansas & then in Ohio & never did May baskets; never heard of them outside of a mention in a Louisa May Alcott book (maybe Jack & Jill?) Did know of maypole dancing but saw my first one in an Renaissance Festival at Earlham College in Richmond, IN. They held those festivals every 4 years. Also saw a beautiful peregrine there; it was hooded & sitting on it’s handler’s arm at the time. The handler let me take a picture.